I can identify/ have an affinity with your story....as someone who generally avoids the group think/going along with flow. I think as the cocktails went down I would have probably become more bolshie...and general just ridiculed them back.....culminating in a f...k 'em attitude!

I wonder how they felt next morning and the weeks ahead....trying to determine if the predictions came through......applying a bit of confirmation bias technique!!

I like Halloween for the costumes, and I enjoy a good scare (I watch psychological and "supernatural" thrillers even though I know it's bullshit) at this time of the year. Halloween parties have always been some of the most fun parties for me. Never had a psychic or fortune-teller at one, though. It might be fun to have one just to debunk the whole thing, like having someone in to show the tricks these people use and how persuasive they can be. I wouldn't do it in a serious way.

Once I went along with some friends on a spur-of-the-moment visit to a psychic. All four of us had recently lost our sons and had met through a bereavement group. Although they were aware that I'm an atheist, I did not try to dissuade them from their belief that their children were "in contact" with them on the basis that this was a comfort to them and we were all grieving. I don't like to pull the rug out from under grieving people, although I know there's no afterlife and the thought of one does not comfort me. I agreed to go along, but I sat there not saying anything and trying not to give any clues to the "psychic" reader. She got a lot right when my friends interacted with her, but with me she got just about everything wrong. I just refused to give her any clues or prompts. In the end she just said I was "surrounded by forces but was refusing to let them through". Such bullshit. It just reinforced for me what parasites these people are. I tried later to use this incident to gently dissuade my friends from this crap, but they just didn't understand why I wouldn't "want" to communicate with my son.

Sorry for the long-winded tale, but in conclusion I think a party for atheists could do without a fortune teller unless it's to debunk them.

Thanks. I guess I have a pretty strong negative opinion of psychics. I wouldn't want to be a party killjoy, but I just don't think there's anything funny about these frauds. They should be called out and debunked at every opportunity.

You sound like a religious person with that "is it ok" thing LOL It's not like atheism is a religion, there's no rule book, so I guess it boils down to whether or not your scepticism extends to all unfounded claims, or just the claim that there is no god. Personally, I think psychic mumbo jumbo is fraud and should not be encouraged, and I wouldn't do it, but then again I have no friends (mostly because I'm the "cynical a-hole" who always points out such things). That's just me though, you're a different person and you have to think about how you feel and make your own decision.

I have a friend that believes in all of that stuff, and I'm like, this 'psychic' has told you the same lie for 6 years, and they change it ever so slightly, since the prediction has not come true...ever. She's using her psychic to find the man she will marry. And deal with events in life. I just shake my head.